


Liminal Bridge

by AphantaRay



Series: The Starlight Justiciar [2]
Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M, Headcanon Mechanics, Nonbinary Character, Post-Canon, Years Later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-30 13:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21429289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AphantaRay/pseuds/AphantaRay
Summary: A collection of events taking place a few months after the end ofThe Starlight Justiciar's first book (which takes place four years after the Cleave).Star's moral fortitude is put to the test in her pursuit of a better world, Janna's struggles inStar's Unconventional School of Arcanahave begun, a mysterious power is shaking the foundations of the world beneath their feet, and the future of the Monster Kingdom hangs in the balance in the aftermath of a devastating political upheaval. And somehow all of this will fit into what the author calls an 'intermission'.
Relationships: Star Butterfly & Janna Ordonia, Star Butterfly/Marco Diaz
Series: The Starlight Justiciar [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514249
Kudos: 4





	Liminal Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. It's me, the author. I missed you. Or it's nice to meet you. Either way, thanks for visiting.
> 
> If you'd like a 'brief' synopsis of the first book so you don't have to read the whole thing, check out the end notes.
> 
> This is _not_ supposed to be a proper 'book two' because I don't want to fuss with making it perfect. In theory this intermission should be completely optional reading when book two does come around. Expect sporadic updates, and please [tell me](https://www.tumblr.com/message/aphantaray) if something seems amiss with the characters/plot/spelling/etc because I don't have an editor and I am sometimes kind of an idiot.
> 
> Also, hey, unrelated, remember when I [regendered Janna as nonbinary out of canon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18971902/chapters/46835353#chapter_12_endnotes)? Boy I sure do. Considering that a few months have passed in the story, and Janna's been out and living with their very good friend Star, I figure they'd be about ready to start trying out a shiny new set of gender affirming pronouns, and so am I. Please excuse me while I try to figure out how to write clearly with singular gender-neutral pronouns, because wow this is a lot harder than just speaking with them.
> 
> \- [AR](https://aphantaray.tumblr.com)

The temperature was finally cooling down enough that Janna could open the windows during the day. They slid the balcony door all the way open to let some outdoorsy air take over the den. The smell of wet, fallen leaves from some nearby patch of Mewnian woods filled the room. Autumn. The season of decay, of change, of spooks and ghouls and the arcane. Janna always felt more at home around this time of year.

Star was out for the day for her lectures, so Janna was taking the opportunity to go over the details of a personal research project. They sat at the couch and hummed to themself cheerfully while looking over a bunch of notebooks they’d spread out all over the coffee table. The pages were full of numbers, map coordinates, dates, and tallied lists of strange items. Janna had also taken over the majority of the living room with a few rolling bulletin boards. They’d unrolled and pinned up a bunch of sheets of paper that were stapled messily together to form a massive hand-drawn map of the greater Butterfly Grounds/Monster Lowlands/Echo Creek region – which really needed a catchier name. Considering that none of the territories could sit down together and figure something out after _four years_, maybe _The Mess_ was a good fit. Janna crossed out the long inclusive title at the top of the map and replaced it with the snappier name.

Janna’s set-up was kind of blocking the TV, but Star wouldn’t be back until late, and she probably wouldn’t mind anyways. Not like there was anything good on these days. All the good shows were on hiatus. Were good shows ever _not_ on hiatus?

Overlaid on the giant map were green and red strings that represented all the amalgam tunnels Janna had been exploring with Marco and Tom for the past couple years. Green for ‘thoroughly cleaned out of anything cool’, red for ‘could still be cool stuff around here’. And today, they got to replace the final red string with green. They took a step back from the map with their hands on their hips and beamed at the daunting document with pride. But just because the map was complete didn’t mean their work was done.

All over the map were little notes about what kinds of things were in this cave or that, what date the entrances opened up, how old the stuff inside seemed to be, what kind of creatures had formed there. And even though it seemed random at first, Janna knew that nothing was random – not really. Everything always fit together. Everything had reason. And the more information you had about something, the easier it was to understand. Now, the entire cave system explored, this was the time to figure out where the tunnels and their contents really came from – and why they only seemed to be showing up around The Mess.

The theory Janna had been running on until sometime last year was that the amalgam all formed at the same time when the two dimensions got squashed together. Something about being close to the epicenter of the event contributed to their uncanny concentration nearby. But then more kept popping up. And unlike the early caves – which were exclusively full of Mewni-Earth hybrids – stuff inside the new caves was composed of unique blends from a diverse selection of dimensions. Something of immense power was doing _something_ to make all this stuff crash into Mewnearth’s dimension, and Janna wanted it.

They filled in some missing spots in their notebooks with the data from the latest excavation, and then the puzzling began. Over the course of an hour or two or three maybe (who was keep track?), they started drawing out everything they could think of that might point to a pattern. Page after page filled up with graphs, Venn diagrams, word maps, timelines, word jumbles. Nothing popped out, but something _had_ to be there.

“You know what I need here is a math nerd,” Janna mumbled to themself. And the closest thing they had to a math nerd was a regular nerd. They sent Marco a few photos of their numbers and charts.

_ThrowingShade: Diaz. Thoughts?_

_Abs4Days: your handwriting is impeccable as always._

_ThrowingShade: About the data._

_Abs4Days: there is a lot of it, and it appears to be about the caves, and judging only by the fact that you have told me absolutely nothing, i bet you want me to help you with something._

_ThrowingShade: You’re on a roll. Need you to do some nerd stuff and tell me where they came from. I want more of them._

_Abs4Days: more what? caves?_

_ThrowingShade: Fewer questions, more nerd stuff._

_Abs4Days: i don’t know what kind of nerd stuff you think i can do to this, dude._

_ThrowingShade: If I knew how nerd stuff worked, I would do it myself. Just do some math at it or whatever. I’m counting on you._

_Abs4Days: okay so ignoring that i’m super busy with my labs, surely you of all people know that i’m studying biochem and psych, right? not cartography or geology or whatever?_

_ThrowingShade: It’s all the same nerd stuff, dude. Hop to it._

_Abs4Days: do I have a choice? or are you going to hypnotize me again?_

_ThrowingShade: I would never. Again. You’re the only one I can count on for this._

_ThrowingShade: An exchange. Free coffee? Lunch? Haircut? You need one. Looking scruffy these days, Diaz. _

_Abs4Days: yeah true. you sprinkling positive reinforcement into your negotiations these days? there may yet be hope for you to integrate into society._

_ThrowingShade: Just let me know when you’ve got something, and I’ll make it worth your while._

_Abs4Days: you know we can just go for lunch right, you don’t have to make it a transaction every time._

_ThrowingShade: Everything’s a transaction, Diaz. Give me some tit, I’ll hook you up with some tat._

_Abs4Days: not sure that came out how you meant it, but i’ll see what i can do._

_ThrowingShade: Knew I could count on you Diaz. Make me proud._

Marco stopped replying. Janna imagined he was abandoning his studies to dedicate his every ounce of attention to calculating the origins of the caves. What a reliable gentleman he’d grown up to be. Janna was pretty lucky to have him on their side. Poor guy. He was so easy to exploit. Just couldn’t help helping people, and he loved puzzles. And Janna hated to admit it, but he was probably a better detective than they were. If anyone could figure out what was going on with this stuff, it was him. Janna didn’t even need to hypnotize him really, but it was fun to mess with him once in a while.

Janna meandered into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While listening to the water rumble in the pot, they were suddenly struck with how easy they were feeling these days. Things had almost completely gone back to normal since the incident that summer. They’d fully recovered and then some, since Star was mentoring them in the dead ways of Magic. School was a breeze. And they could really just be themself at home around Star. Heck, even out in public. It was so different from anything they’d experienced before. It still shook Janna up whenever Star stood up for them when they were out for food. Every ‘ma’am’ and ‘miss’ lobbed at Janna was shot down by a sharp-tongued jab from Star. Janna never imagined they’d have a friend like that, or a home like this.

Teapot and cup in hand, Janna returned to the living room to admire the map again. It really was the product of years of work, and the thing turned out to be a real work of art – easily an archaeological thesis all in itself. Shame they were only in their third year. It’d be pretty impressive to be published at twenty. Maybe they could put it out under a fake name or something. Or, really, how hard could it be to mess with the university’s records and forge a master’s degree?

They sat down on the couch, poured out a cup of tea, and then pulled out their laptop to research academic document forgery.

Some number of hours slipped away. The sun was nearly set and their tea was long cold by the time their attention was taken away from their research by the sound of the front door closing.

Star dropped her bag and her coat on the floor and let out a little sigh, which was basically how she always entered the apartment, so surely all was well with the world. Since moving in together, Janna had noted that Star tended to carry a huge emotional weight on her shoulders, hidden behind a pretty convincing façade of encouraging enthusiasm, all day every day, except for the few moments she took for herself when she got home. Janna had still not quite worked out what to do about this. Star gave Janna a little exhausted hey, then stopped in her tracks to marvel at the map that had taken over their living room.

“Whoa. Cool map. What is this?”

“Amalgam cave system.”

“Those creepy mutant caves?”

“Yeah. Hey did you know you can become a PhD for like $200 in some countries?”

“Like, a professor?”

“Basically.”

“Yeah I’m gonna say no on that one. Can you imagine being a prof? Repeating the same lecture for the twentieth year in a row to a bunch of kids who don’t even know why they’re there? Writing pointless research papers and leading grad students to follow in their weirdly culty footsteps? No thanks.”

“But the prestige of it. Become a big name and they’ll start calling you to talk on the news and stuff. And bam, suddenly you’re best friends with all these big names in academia, getting access to everyone’s unpublished research. There’s so much knowledge out there, Star, hiding in desks and binders and big juicy brains. But they don’t care about little people like you and me until there’s a PhD at the end of our names.”

Star took in the map for a moment more before she walked up to it and carefully wheeled the cork boards out of the way of the TV which she promptly turned on to hunt down a good show to binge.

Janna scooted over on the couch for Star, who and slumped down beside them in a heap. Then Star continued on the topic, “You can’t just break into their offices or something? That seems a little more on-brand for you.”

“That’s fine for now, but one day I’ll be too old for picking locks and climbing through windows. Gotta plan for retirement, you know?”

Star scrolled through cover images on the TV hoping to find a gold nugget in the form of an appealing, unwatched show. She got a few dozen duds in before she started grumbling about it.

“You want some real exciting TV?” Janna asked playfully, “You should turn on the news. Big stuff happening this week.”

“Ugh, no. No news.”

“Come on Star, you can’t ignore the impending chaos forever. The election is fast upon us.”

“Yeah you love this, don’t you?”

Janna held up their finger and thumb in the shape of an L, “Team Ludo, baby.”

“No! No team Ludo! Every time he’s in charge, he ruins everything. He’s already destroyed two whole kingdoms, dude. I can’t believe he’s polling right behind Eclipsa. She worked so hard to pull the Monster Kingdom out of the dirt and bring everyone together, and now they just want to throw her out? What is _wrong_ with people?”

Janna shrugged, “Eclipsa’s pretty weird, dude. I mean, Ludo’s also weird but more in a _cute little gremlin_ kind of way. Eclipsa’s got more of a _scary aunt_ vibe. Delightful, but definitely not good for a politician.”

“Why is ‘cute little gremlin’ better!? He’s an idiot and he’d run their whole country into the ground. Ugh.”

“Okay yes but he’s a _lovable_ idiot.” Janna stole the remote from Star’s hand and flipped the TV over to the news, “Come on, just a little peek. Let’s see what the little rascal got up to today.”

And sure enough, it didn’t take more than a few seconds for one of the many outrageous things Ludo got up to in the past 24 hours to show up on the screen. Apparently now he was bumbling into human establishments and telling them all how ridiculous Eclipsa’s hair was, showing off his own ‘hair’ which was entirely combed over from his unkempt beard. He’d even dyed it bright green to be more ‘hip’ with young voters – a fact that he mentioned at every opportunity.

The footage showed one of his entirely unscripted rants, which in this case was directed to a group of nose-picking human children at a public playground. “_Oh sure, Eclipsa was great when she had her sparkly Magic Wand, but what’s she gonna do now, huh? She’s too soft! We need someone hard. Like me!_” Ludo then proceeded to smash a brick on his forehead to demonstrate the density of his skull. He did not look well afterwards. Judging from the bruises on his face, Janna figured the little weirdo had been doing this stunt at every speaking gig, and he seemed to be stopping for a scathing diatribe at every street corner that had more than five people waiting at the lights. It was: delightful. Horrifying, because he was definitely, definitely going to win, and Star was absolutely right about the consequences, but Janna wasn’t one to shy away from savoring the terrors of the abyss.

Star tried to wrest control of the TV from Janna, “Please Janna, I can’t watch this, turn it off.”

The footage cut to Eclipsa who, for contrast, was delivering an even-tempered speech at a small gathering on the border between Echo Creek and the Monster Kingdom. But she looked absolutely worn down. “_In this election, you are being asked to put up walls, to shun neighbors, but we mustn’t do that. We have to continue to celebrate our diversity, to come together, to share our strengths and our struggles and to overcome. And we will overcome, I promise you. We have that power, and I have been here with you, sharing my strengths as a determined and compassionate leader, steering all of us towards that better tomorrow. We can do this together, we can use our power, united, to create a safer Monster Kingdom for every monster on Mewnearth—_”

Eclipsa was interrupted by having to dodge a piece of garbage that came flying from the small crowd. The assailant shouted at Eclipsa, “_You’re not even from here, mewman! You think you deserve to lead us? Go back where you belong, or we’ll show you what monster power really looks like!_”

Eclipsa put on a look of indignity, much to the obvious panic of her aides. She retorted back at the heckler, “_Excuse me? I’m not from here? I practically built here!_” Eclipsa’s campaign manager was hurriedly directing her aides to come and restrain Eclipsa while he tried to take over the mic and calm down the crowd, but it was no use. Poor Reginald. The speaking event had devolved into utter chaos. Eclipsa burst out of the restraining grasp of her team and leapt out into the crowd to chase down the target of her ire, “_Come back here you little coward! I’ll fight you if you’re looking for a fight!_”

Star unplugged the TV.

“And that’s enough of that. I’ll just go read a book if we can’t watch something nice.”

Janna was feeling a little bewildered by what she just saw, “Eclipsa’s really losing it, huh?”

“Yeah, well, I doubt she’s got anyone with any sense working on her campaign anymore.”

“Bet she misses you.”

“Bet she does! But _apparently_ even though I was pretty clear to the whole freaking world that I’m not doing the princess thing anymore, I’m not _allowed_ to help with the campaign because ‘it would be perceived as political influence from a foreign power’. Sure, mom. Whatever. I mean, we’ve been installing puppet governments all over Mewni for centuries, but showing a little public support for the better candidate in a real, legitimate election? No, no. That’s way too much.

“You know, my mom won’t even say she believes Eclipsa’s the better candidate, Janna. Not even to me. She just gave me the same political _nothing_ response she gives everyone – that the _Monster Kingdom_ will decide who’s the best.” Star grumbled with disgust.

While Star was speaking, Janna had a devious realization that they couldn’t keep inside: “I bet she wants Ludo to win.”

“Don’t say that.”

“No, think about it. Doesn’t she want to make this big alliance thing? And who’s standing in the way of that? Eclipsa.”

“No. Janna. She can’t… He’s going to ruin everything Eclipsa built. And the way he runs things, he’ll probably ruin everything _we’ve_ built too.”

“Yeah but you know how your mom is. She loves taking care of everything herself. Ludo’s a real pushover, so Moon’s probably thinking she can just keep him under her thumb, contain the damage, and get a Mewnian alliance out of the deal. ‘I did what I had to do,’ she’ll say. Peak Moon.”

Star buried her face in her hands, mumbling a string of pleading ‘no’s to herself, trying to hide from the harsh possibility that her mom was still a pretty terrible kind of ruler, but there’s no hiding from the truth. Reality is a real… Oh. Oh she’s almost crying over there. Okay well, Janna wasn’t trying to do that to Star, who on closer examination was maybe having an especially bad day after all. Crud.

Janna pleaded apologetically with Star, “Hey. Hey come on, I didn’t mean it. It’s just an idea. Just a stupid idea, okay?”

“No, it’s not. You’re right. I mean, you’re probably right. I just don’t want to think about it. I just want to watch a stupid show and not think about it. Can we just watch a stupid show for a while?”

Janna agreed and Star plugged the TV back in, then returned to the couch, curled up and sulking with a pillow.

Janna put on a surefire crowd pleaser – _Stargirl and The Power of Tomorrow_. One-point-five glorious seasons of sincere chemistry, organic character development, intriguing world-building, and amazing animation – tragically cut down in its prime a couple years ago for ~reasons unknown~. Star and them had watched it like a dozen times already and it never got old.

A few episodes in, Star was definitely looking more relaxed, so hopefully all was forgotten. Janna had a bad habit of going too far, and it was a bigger problem now that they were sharing a home with Star. More time together, more chances to push the envelope, and no where to run when things got awkward. Real roommates were complicated, and Janna had to work at it. They couldn’t risk losing this home. This real home that was nothing at all like living with their pushy parents or in that skeezy rooming house. Star never bugged Janna about their research, their weird sleeping habits, or the strange noises that came from their room. Yeah, making Star feel awful was probably not the best way to preserve this arrangement.

Star interrupted Janna’s introspection with a longing lamentation, “Man, I wish I had some of that Tomorrow power.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be symbolic, dude. It’s like hope and hard work or something. If anyone’s got the Power of Tomorrow around here, it’s you.”

“Well, I’m running out of juice Janna, and I don’t have the luxury of a Tomorrow Well to fill my reserves back up.”

“I think the Tomorrow Well’s a metaphor too. For like… I dunno—”

“Pizza?”

“What? That sounds a little shallow for a fountain of hope. Maybe the power of friendship or something?”

“No, I’m ordering pizza, you want some?”

Star only ever ordered pizza when it was a recovery day. Something must have happened today that she wasn’t talking about. Janna wondered if it was the right thing to do to ask, or if they should just leave it alone.

“Yeah I’ll get a Hawaiian with hot peppers.”

“Nasty. You good with Big Torgo’s?”

Janna nodded, and Star made the call. A few episodes later, they were settled in with a large pizza each, on a trajectory to binge the rest of the show in one sitting.

During one of the less energetic episodes, Janna figured they should probably make sure Star was doing alright.

“Hey you okay? You seem a little beat down today.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Janna pushed a bit more, “You sure? You can tell me whatever, you know, but if you’re not up to it, no biggie.”

Star sighed and then opened up a bit, “Things are just a lot, you know? Like, what is even the point of school? I don’t know why I’m doing it at all, totally lost all my drive.”

“Want a free degree? Push the Star Butterfly story on to the next chapter.”

Star let out a little sigh, “Yeah great, the next chapter: Star Works in an Office for Thirty Years.”

“Well that’s not a very Star thing to do.”

“_Star things_ don’t seem to work much in this world. The scale here is just… there’s just a lot.”

“You know you don’t have to work, right? You can just take it easy and do whatever’s important to you. Let your family take care of all the bills and stuff.”

Star laughed at that dismissively, “Yeah, total freedom, complete with strings. No political stuff, no international affairs, no public appearances that might make bring disgrace to the throne.”

“Come on dude, this really isn’t you. What’s going on?”

Star fiddled with her hands and put her words together for a while before she asked, “Is it worth working with someone you hate if it means you can do something good?”

“Gotta work with people you hate, doesn’t really matter what you’re doing.”

“Okay sure, terrible managers, bad customers, annoying coworkers, whatever. But like… someone who’s just totally despicable?”

“You want a rule of thumb for compromising your morals? Probably not a thing, dude. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been thinking, I can’t do anything like this, just a regular girl, just chanting in crowds, putting up posters, writing speeches and articles and letters. No one cares. And I couldn’t do anything as a princess either, just tied up in political niceties. But I can do something different from anyone else here. Something bigger. Something devastating. I can mess up everything for the bad guys, you know? I’ve got access to this totally insane amount of power compared to these little cretins messing with mewmans and monsters – except I only know one place to get it.”

Star must be referring to the biggest slime factory they knew, “That guy on the city council?”

Star nodded. “It’s probably not what you’re thinking though, but maybe this is worse.” Star hesitated to continue. “I’m not proud of this. I want you to understand that, okay? This… I don’t want this to be who I am, but I don’t know what else to do anymore.”

“Alright. This one is stricken from the record.”

“Thanks. I hope you mean it.” Star took a deep breath and then continued what she clearly considered to be a shameful account, “I met with him a while ago. Showed him what I got on him. He was squirming, and I saw an opportunity in it. He’s under my thumb now, gives me all the dirt on everyone he knows so I won’t sell him out. It’s a huge deal. So, great for me, I guess, but I’m just part of it now, protecting one of the bad guys – which I’m pretty sure just makes me a bad guy too. But I just got to thinking what awesome things I could do with this. Just with this connection, with the leads he could give me, I’d be able to do more than I ever could protesting or writing academic papers.”

“Right. Plus… free Starlight.” Janna realized this was probably why Star was able to produce such a steady supply of the stuff for their training. They hoped Star hadn’t done any this for their sake.

“Yeah. No more break ins. That’s not the point, but it’s definitely a bonus for us.”

Janna was a little taken aback by all this. This was not a very _Star Butterfly_ kind of arrangement. In fact, it was very much a _Janna Ordonia_ kind of arrangement. They must have been rubbing off on Star, and maybe for the worse. Janna kind of appreciated Star’s whole ‘pillar of moral integrity’ thing, and it’d be pretty unsettling to see that eroding away.

“You didn’t want me in on this scheme? You know I love a good blackmail.”

Star shook her head, “I didn’t want _anyone_ in on this. This is _my_ thing. But… it’s harder than I thought, knowing I’m just… letting this stuff happen, letting this guy do whatever he wants, just so I can have a little bit of power. Well, no, not a little bit. A lot really. I’ve already got so much dirt from him. It’s crazy what’s been going on. And honestly…” Star sighed, “All that stuff you were saying about my mom, about Ludo… From what Reggie’s been telling me, Echo Creek’s government’s been getting pushed hard by the Seal to mess with the election, to mess with my mom and Eclipsa. I have all these leads that could expose everything, but I keep thinking, ‘So what?’ Really. No one cares. You see stuff like this in the news all the time. And then what? Even if I do expose a big scandal in the election, they’re not going to cancel it. They’re not going to do anything to stop the Seal from messing with our business. I’ll just look like a conspiracy nut. So not only am I sheltering this scumbag to get access to political _gossip_, I can’t even use it to _do_ anything.”

“Come on dude, it’s not that hopeless. Your heart’s in the right place here, why are you getting discouraged? These things need to be exposed to the public. At least people need to know about it. No one should trust the government, and we need reminders of that. Like, often. We’re very a stupid and gullible lot.”

Star looked Janna in the eye while they spoke, and something in her face said she needed something.

“Star you’re doing something _good_. It’s _good_. But you’ve gotta follow through here, dude. Even if you don’t think it matters, it does. _Do_ something with this, or yeah, you’re just keeping a bunch of bad guys’ secrets, and I know you’re better than that.”

“Am I?”

Janna put their hand on Star’s shoulder and gave her a serious look, “Star, please, I’m not good at this stuff. Get over it, okay? You’re a hero. A real one. You’re not supposed to be wallowing around feeling bad for yourself. There’s a whole world out there that needs you.”

“Do they?”

“Yes dude. Yes. More than ever before. Tap into that Power of Tomorrow, dude. There’s better stuff coming, but you gotta keep your hopes up, and you have to work at it. And ask for help once in a while! Why are you so bad at that?”

“It’s the Butterfly curse, passed down from terrible mom to terrible daughter for generations.”

“So break that curse, dude. Use your friends. Some people don’t have anyone, and those people end up doing desperate, reckless things. Like Ludo?”

“Right. Do not want to be a Ludo.”

“No one wants to be a Ludo. _Ludo_ doesn’t want to be a Ludo. Look, just take care of yourself, and talk to your friends. We believe in you. And I don’t want anything to happen to you. I couldn’t afford this place on my own.”

Star smiled for the first time since they started this conversation, “Gee thanks, feels nice to be needed.”

“Trust me, you’re needed around here as much as you are out there. Which, if it wasn’t clear, is a lot.”

Star took in a deep breath, and when she let it out, some hope had returned to her eyes. She thanked Janna for their kind words, and Janna secretly sighed in relief that they’d managed to find the right ones to put Star at ease. The two of them shared a little fist bump, and then spent the rest of the night bingeing _The Power of Tomorrow_, ending the night in the early morning, sharing the usual celebration of the show’s quality and the heartfelt lamentation about its untimely demise.

After Star wished Janna sweet dreams and made her way to bed, Janna turned the lights back on and returned to studying their notes. And, far too late in the night for him, Janna’s phone buzzed with a message from Marco. He found something, and it wasn’t good.

**Author's Note:**

> So you want to read this story but the 90k-word first book is too daunting? I get it. I haven't read it either. Have a synopsis.
> 
> The important stuff:
> 
>   * Mewni and Earth merged haphazardly, and even after 4 years, the political fallout has not settled. Interdimensional racism is rampant, monsters are being pushed out of their homes and disappeared, and the region around Echo Creek is an epicenter for the chaos because of the proximity of the Monster Temple and the Butterfly Kingdom to the city of Echo Creek.
>   * Star desperately seeks out ways to fix the mess created from her actions, has renounced her royal title, changed her appearance, does not reveal her name in public, and does work with local activist groups to advocate for unity. She also attends Echo Creek University with Marco and Janna. She's studying international development. One of her attempts to restore justice to the world involves the slightly-illegal investigation of a corrupt Echo Creek city councilor.
>   * Marco is Marco and wonderful as always. He's studying for a premed degree and doesn't always agree with Star's methods for bringing about change in the world, but he still loves and supports her.
>   * Caves formed underneath Echo Creek after the Cleave. The caves are filled with a bunch of junk from different dimensions - much of which is physically merged together. Janna calls the merged junk 'amalgam' for short, and regularly explores the caves to collect interesting books and artifacts.
>   * Janna got tangled up in a big mess when they discovered a strange black slime visible only to former Magic users - slime that seems to form almost exclusively in one corrupt politician's home. An interdimensional instruction guide showed them how to extract a raw, untamed source of power called Starlight from the slime. When released, the power incapacitates them, leaving Star and Marco scrambling to find a cure for the illness before it consumes Janna. Somehow this is the bulk of the story even though it only comes up halfway through Part 1.
>   * Star discovers Starlight can in fact be used for spellcasting - very, very badly - but the resource is extremely limited in supply and she expends everything she has before she can do much with it.
>   * Mina has been spliced together with monsters into a chimeric creature. She is single-mindedly bent on reclaiming the power that Star stole from her when the Magic was destroyed. She's presently held in captivity at Castle Lucitor.
>   * Mina seemed to be working with an organization called the Seal of Light. Not much is known about them, but they have a 'shadowy paramilitary government organization' vibe and have been kidnapping and torturing septarians. They also kidnap Star and Marco for meeting with a 'known septarian terrorist'. It's heavily implied that they are the source of at least some of the xenophobic chaos in the world.
>   * The Underworld has taken on a role as a supplier of electrical power to corporations and nations using the near-limitless power available from the pools of lava there. Tom has been appointed the spokesman for the business and spends much of his time pushing the brand on social media and attending meetings. He hates it, and he never has time to hang out with his friends.
>   * It won't be relevant in this story, but Meteora goes a little crazy when she mistakenly thinks the adults have been hiding the return of Magic from her, and tries to take Starlight for herself to open a portal back to the Neverzone for her and Mariposa. She does not succeed.
>   * Queen Moon is trying to convince the disparate kingdoms of Mewni to unite and form treaties with their respective neighboring lands. Prime Minister Eclipsa of the Monster Kingdom doesn't support the idea because of how obvious it is that the humans don't consider monsters to be people, instead asking the kingdoms to put pressure on governments to formally recognize monsters' civil rights before moving forward with treaty negotiations. Eclipsa has left an open invitation for monster refugees to take up residence in camps on what little land she managed to maintain a claim on near the temple.
> 
> \- [AR](https://aphantaray.tumblr.com)


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